A North Idaho Republican lawmaker has proposed a bill to require many hospitals to report the number of undocumented patients it serves.

Rep. Jordan Redman of Coeur d’Alene on Wednesday introduced draft legislation that would create a new requirement for hospitals that accept Medicaid to ask patients on their intake forms what their immigration status is. Hospitals would have to report quarterly to the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare the number of patients who were citizens, lawfully present, and not legally present in the U.S.

The state health agency would then be tasked with annually reporting to the governor and Legislature hospital and emergency department admissions by each category of immigration status, as well as “information relating to the costs of uncompensated care” for undocumented patients.

Redman said the forms would also have to include a statement that the response would not affect patient care or result in a report of their status to immigration authorities.

“This is simply a data reporting transparency mechanism,” Redman told the House Health and Welfare Committee on Wednesday.

The bill would also require the Health and Welfare to create rules for how the information would be collected and reported; the rules could not require names or other personal identifying information be included.

Rep. Josh Wheeler, R-Ammon, said he would want to hear from hospitals what potential administrative cost this may have and if that would get pushed onto the Medicaid program.

Rep. Megan Egbert, D-Boise, asked why the information would be collected by those who pay for their own care or have private insurance.

“My understanding is that most undocumented individuals actually self-pay for their care in hospitals,” Egbert said. “Why would we want to collect that information?”

Redman responded he wanted to document to “actually see what the utilization on the hospital systems is.”

The committee unanimously voted to introduce the bill, which allows it to come back to the committee for a full public hearing with testimony.